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North Korea calls for high-level nuclear and security talks with US

North Korea Koreas Te_LaMo.jpg

A woman rests under an umbrella while a man walks past her near a statue known as the Monument to the Three Charters for National Reunification, which symbolizes the hope for eventual reunification of the two Koreas, in Pyongyang, North Korea, Saturday, June 15, 2013. (AP Photo/Alexander Yuan)

PYONGYANG, North Korea -- North Korea's top governing body on Sunday
proposed high-level nuclear and security talks with the United States in
an appeal sent just days after calling off talks with rival South
Korea.

The powerful National Defense Commission headed by North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un issued a statement through state media proposing
high-level talks to ease tensions and promote peace and security on the
Korean Peninsula. There was no immediate response from Washington.

The proposal for talks between the Korean War foes follows months of
acrimony over North Korea's defiant launch of a long-range rocket in
December and a nuclear test in February, provocative acts that drew
tightened U.N. and U.S. sanctions. The U.S. and South Korea countered
the moves by stepping up annual springtime military exercises that
prompted North Korea to warn of a "nuclear war" on the Korean Peninsula.

However, as tensions subsided in May and June, Pyongyang has made
tentative overtures to re-establish dialogue with South Korea and
Washington.

A proposal for Cabinet-level talks with South Korea -- the first in
six years -- led to initial plans for two days of meetings in Seoul
earlier this week, but the plans fell apart over disagreement over who
would lead the two delegations.

North Korea fought against U.S.-led United Nations and South Korean
troops during the three-year Korean War in the early 1950s, and
Pyongyang does not have diplomatic relations with either government. The
Korean Peninsula remains divided by a heavily fortified border.

Reunifying the Korean Peninsula was a major goal of North Korea's two
late leaders, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and is a legacy inherited by
current leader Kim Jong Un. North Korea is expected to draw attention
to Korea's division in the weeks leading up to the 60th anniversary in
July marking the close of the Korean conflict, which ended in an
armistice. A peace treaty has never been signed formally ending the war.

Foreign analysts say impoverished North Korea often expresses
interest in talks after raising tensions with provocative behavior in
order to win outside concessions.

Washington's top worry is North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang is estimated to have a handful of crude nuclear devices and
has been working toward building a bomb it can mount on a missile
capable of striking the United States.

Earlier this year, Kim Jong Un enshrined the drive to build a nuclear
arsenal, as well as building the economy, as national goals. North
Korea claims the need to build atomic weapons to defend itself against
what it sees as a U.S. nuclear threat in Korea and the region.

Denuclearization must include "denuclearization of the entire Korean
Peninsula, including South Korea, and putting an absolute end to the
U.S.'s nuclear threat against us," a spokesman from the National Defense
Commission said in a Korean-language statement carried by the Korean
Central News Agency. "The U.S. should stop nuclear threats and lies on
North Korea and end all forms of provocations including sanctions."